One might assume that a game that takes place under the sea would tend to use a palette heavily biased towards blues. This is the case with the maps in Submarine Titans as can be seen by the screenshots included in this review. However, there is good use of other colors as well, and so the game does not appear awash in blue, if you'll excuse the pun. A lot of little details were also added to make the game more enjoyable to play. Bubbles, sea life, sinking debris, impact craters, torpedo trails, and more, give the game a nice look.

For the most part, the game's sounds and music add to the gameplay experience. Explosions, voiceovers, and other various sounds are done well, and the game makes extensive use of stereo effects. The music fits the game's underwater theme, with the exception of the combat theme. This track is played each time an attack occurs and gets old fast. It is too over-the-top, annoying, and repetitive.

The addition of Computer Assistants is a welcome new feature in strategy gaming. Players turned-off by the degree of resource management required by some strategy games will enjoy the fact that they can concentrate on combat or construction instead.

Allowing players to try their hand at tweaking or programming is a nice feature, but it will not be a very practical option for most players. The game does not provide an AI editor and requires players to learn a macro language before writing custom AI scripts. Also, the manual does not contain any information on the language or how to use it - for that information the player must consult a separate MS Word document. It's too bad that customizing the AI was not made an easier task - it would have been very interesting to see players challenge each other over the internet, pitting their AI scripts against each other.

While the game does include three factions, the two human ones are very similar to each other and require fairly similar strategies to play. It would have made the game more interesting if more effort were put into making these two factions more unique.

There is a campaign for each faction consisting of ten missions each. The missions are challenging enough and take some time to play - games of an hour plus are not uncommon - providing the player with a lot of entertaining gameplay. However, there is not too much variation in the types of missions - most are of the transport something somewhere and then destroy all opposition on the map variety.

The game's AI can be quite challenging, especially on the game's highest difficulty setting. Players new to strategy gaming may find it too difficult to make their way through even the first missions of the campaign.

The ability to hide submarines from your enemy under rock outcroppings and in sea caves is a nice idea, but more often than not you will find that these submarines will be hidden from you as well, becoming lost or forgotten.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 68%. Submarine Titans is middle of the road RTS fare.  Strategy gamers might enjoy the game's novel setting, but its quirks and shortcomings may prove to be frustrating.

System Requirements:  233 MHz MMX CPU, 32 MB RAM, 6x CD-ROM, 140 MB Hard Drive Space, Mouse.

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